


Just a Blind Date

by Lisa_Telramor



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Blind Date, F/M, seven wonders of twilight town
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:33:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25156282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lisa_Telramor/pseuds/Lisa_Telramor
Summary: Roxas isn't sure he should trust Lea picking him a blind date, but it's too late to turn back now.
Relationships: Roxas/Xion (Kingdom Hearts)
Kudos: 14





	Just a Blind Date

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this in December but kept forgetting to post it, so here, have a roxas/xion fic.

“I’m still not comfortable with this,” Roxas said as Lea held up different shirts in front of him. “You should just call your friend and cancel this.”

“Oh relax a little, Rox,” Lea said. He tossed the shirts away. “You said you wanted to have fun and do something new. So live a little.”

“When I said that I meant, I dunno, picking up a new hobby, not you arranging a blind date,” he grumbled. “You’re not even telling me if it’s with a girl or a boy.”

“Does it matter?”

“Not really, but you know what I mean. What if we have nothing to talk about? I don’t even know what to try and brace myself for.”

“All the better. You get way too defensive when you overthink things.” Lea threw up his hands. “Do you own any shirts that aren’t gray, black or white?”

“What’s wrong with black and white?”

“It makes you look colorblind and boring,” Lea said, hands on his hips.

“We can’t all pull of yellow and red and orange,” Roxas said tugging on Lea’s favorite scarf. It was kind of awful. He wondered why he was letting Lea help him with fashion. _Sora_ arguably had better taste. “Besides, you wear almost as much black as I do.”

“I know the value of color accents.” He plucked up one of the black shirts with a gray pattern that went silvery at points. “Well, this is gonna have to do. Next time you have a date, I’m taking you shopping.”

“Well I’m not letting you set up another date for me ever,” Roxas said with a roll of his eyes. He slid the shirt on and supposed it did look okay with the jeans Lea had shoved at him because ‘he should wear something form flattering’ for once. Lea needed to have less issue with baggy clothing because baggy clothing was _comfortable_.

“Hair and makeup next,” Lea insisted.

“Woah, hey, I never agreed to makeup.”

Lea held up eyeliner and mascara. “You’re blond. This’ll make your eyes stand out. Trust me.”

Said Lea, the guy that wore winged eyeliner and dyed his hair fire-truck red because it made him stand out. Ugh.

“Make it quick. I just want to get this whole thing over with.”

Lea snorted and held him still. “You’re so over dramatic.”

“I’m the dramatic one?”

“Uh, yeah. Who had an epic month of tantrums when Sora started spending more time with his friends than with you?”

“I was twelve!”

Lea stuck out his tongue. “Still stands.” He sprayed a bit of hair mousse on his hand and ran it through Roxas’s hair, before tilting his face from side to side. “Hm. You clean up well enough I guess.”

“Wow, thanks,” Roxas said, snorting. He turned to the mirror, grudgingly acknowledging that Lea did have some idea about what he was doing. He didn’t look bad, and the makeup wasn’t as noticeable as Leah’s was.

“Brown pencil,” Lea said when he noted Roxas examining his eyes. “Black would be too dark for you.”

“But not for you?”

“My whole image is built on bold, high contrast,” he said. “I want it to stand out.”

Roxas snorted again. “I’d thank you but like, I’m still not happy you put me in this position in the first place.”

“It’ll be fine.” Lea slapped his back. “So your date’s going to be waiting in the station plaza just outside the clock tower.”

“All the way over there?”

“They like sea salt ice cream and nice views,” Lea continued. “There, now you know something.”

“So what, you decided to pair us up because we have the same taste in ice cream?”

“Just go have fun,” Lea said. “There’s supposed to be a movie going on in town sponsored by the ice cream place.”

“If that’s where you pictured us having the date, why the heck are we meeting at the clock tower?”

“It’s a nice view,” Lea said. He pushed Roxas toward the door. “See ya, don’t want to see you back here until at least eight o’clock. If I find out you stood your date up, we’re having words.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. See ya Lea.”

Lea shut the door in his face.

Roxas rolled his eyes and headed for the clock tower.

o*O*o

There were a few people milling around, coming and going from the train station, but none of them were the date Lea set him up on. Lea did have a point about the view though. It was a lot nicer when you could manage to sneak to the top of the clock tower, but Central Station was up on a hill above most of the town meaning you could see most of Twilight Town from here even without climbing the tower. It showed off the golden colors of the sunset really well, granted that the sun never went up or down it meant less than it might in other places he supposed.

There wasn’t anyone standing near the station doors, but there was someone leaning against the railing in the plaza, looking out into the distance. Roxas was willing to bet that was the right person. Well, unless whoever it was decided it was more trouble than it was worth and had backed out.

Roxas wouldn’t blame them if they did.

The person by the railing was a girl, and Lea had no right complaining about Roxas’s color preferences because she had a black shirt and gray skirt on. Her hair was short, almost boyish, and when he walked closer, he supposed she was kind of pretty. Roxas was more into people than looks. (Although sometimes he questioned what he liked in people because that few years with a crush on Lea were kind of questionable. Even more questionable than the kind-of-sort-of hate-crush on Riku he’d had at thirteen. At least Riku was pretty instead of spiky and bony like Lea. And a bit closer in age. Roxas’s brain was a bit weird in what it latched onto sometimes.)

He walked over to the girl and leaned on the railing a bit away, just far enough to hopefully not seem creepy.

“So, uh, nice view?” he said, trying to think of a way to subtly ask if she was the person he was meeting with.

“Isn’t it?” the girl said. “It’s so warm here. The colors and the temperature. It’s so much nicer than home.”

“Oh?”

“Gray. All the time.” She turned a bit and gave Roxas a smile, and oh, she was pretty. Not that she wasn’t before, but the smile met her eyes and that genuine enthusiasm for a view he saw all the time made his heart beat a little bit faster.

Roxas bit his lip. “Um, so, possibly strange question. You know a guy called Lea?”

The girl blinked and smiled a bit wider. “Yeah. I know a Lea. Six foot something, red hair, jokes a lot?”

“That’s the guy.”

She laughed. “So you must be my date.” She held out a hand. “My name’s Xion.”

“Roxas.” He was weirdly nervous shaking her hand. It was silly; this was a blind date that neither of them had to make mean something at all. Just another weird whim from Lea after hearing Roxas complain one too many times about being bored.

“Well, Roxas, it’s nice to meet you.”

o*O*o

Roxas wasn’t really sure what to make of her at first, but after a few minutes exchanging stories about how they ended up friends with Lea—Roxas meeting him when he left the Islands, and Xion during one of Lea’s spontaneous travel phases—it turned out that they actually knew a lot of the same people and were even going to the same university. They just frequented different parts of campus and town so far as Roxas could tell.

They were going to go to the movie, really, but somehow talking about friends lead to Roxas remembering Pence dragging him and the rest of Hayner’s group around the other side of Twilight Town to check out the so-called Seven Wonders for a mythology report, and the next thing Roxas knew they were on a train to go see them now. He was having a lot better time than he thought he would.

“I wonder how many places have local legends like this,” Xion said as they counted up and down the stairs multiple times—counting the same every time, of course.

“I dunno. Probably a lot though.”

“Did your Islands have any legends?”

“Hmm, probably.” Roxas skipped down the stairs toward the next spot, considering. “I think there were a few stories my mom told us growing up, and my brother’s friend Riku’s grandma always had the best stories about faraway places. Probably why he wanted to leave so much growing up honestly. There was a story about a kid that opened a door to another world, but that one was kind of sad since he never came back. There were stories like that, the kind that are probably cautionary tales or something. Like the kid that built a raft to sail to the stars and instead got swallowed by the ocean.”

“Wow,” Xion said. “Grim stuff.”

“Right? You’d think there’d be more sunshine and flowers for a tropical island.” Roxas grinned, peeking into the alley. No balls got thrown his way, but then no one had been practicing here lately since it was months until the next Struggle competition. “This one’s supposed to be a ‘Friend From Beyond the Wall,’ but it turned out that this is a place people practice with Struggle balls, so that was another Wonder crossed off the list.”

Xion peered into the alley. “And people missed that there was someone in there?”

“I never said they were _good_ Wonders. I think Pence had to be chasing any rumor he could or something.”

“Well, most rumors have a grain of truth,” Xion reasoned.

“Yeah, yeah, but it was still really random. Like. How is mysteriously number changing stairs a Wonder?”

“It would certainly be strange if it was true.”

They walked away, Roxas leading toward the waterfall. “I guess,” he said after a moment, “there was one neat story. Or, well, maybe it was more of a superstition than a story.” Xion looked at him and he felt self-conscious bringing it up because, well, it was one that actually meant something to him and Sora growing up. “There’s this fruit, ok, shaped like a star. The legend goes that if you share it with someone you care about, your lives and destinies will be entwined. So you’ll always find your way back to each other.” He scrubbed his hair, messing up Lea’s careful styling. “It’s a little cheesy, but…”

“I think it’s pretty cute,” Xion said. “Do you believe it?”

“I dunno.” He shrugged. “I never shared one with anyone. My brother though, Sora, he shared one with his friends Riku and Kairi, and they all ended up going to study in Radiant Garden together, so maybe there’s some sort of truth to it. Or maybe it’s just taking it seriously and working harder to keep up bonds, I don’t know.”

“Maybe it’s both,” Xion suggested. “Belief can go a long way.”

“How about your home? Were there any legends there?”

“Mm.” Xion shrugged. “Not any happy ones.”

Roxas got the feeling she didn’t like her home much. Any question that glanced by the topic was met with a non-answer and a distant look. He could take a hint though, so he just tugged her over to the waterfall.

“Well, this Wonder is a doppelganger. But…” He took a step to the right where the sun hit just right to make the water show their reflections. “I’m pretty sure a mirror effect isn’t an actual doppelganger.”

“Still pretty cool. I didn’t know a waterfall could work as a mirror.” Xion made faces at herself and Roxas snorted. “What? Like you’ve never done it.”

“Actually my brother and I get into face contests all the time.” Roxas grinned before pulling the ridiculous face that Sora always complained was not nearly as silly as his signature silly face. Roxas totally had the better expression.

Xion burst out laughing. “You look like you don’t have a chin!”

“Right?” She made a face and he made one back until they were leaning against each other and gasping for breath.

“Owwww,” Xion giggled. “I can’t breathe!”

“Do I win or do you?”

“We both win because neither of us can stand upright,” she said, rubbing at the stitch in her side. “Okay, no more faces. I don’t think I can take more laughing.”

“Next Wonder?”

“Please.”

Roxas didn’t even think twice about taking her hand and leading her up the hill. “Okay,” he said once he had his breath mostly back. “This one’s a bit weird. So the Wonder is a bag that moves on its own.”

“A bag. Like…a trash bag?”

“Kinda?”

Xion snorted. “A living trash bag is a wonder.”

“I know, right?” They crested the hill and Xion grabbed his hand tight.

“Ohmygosh, is that it?”

In the middle of the hill was a moving bag all right.

Roxas groaned. “Really? Again? C’mon help me catch it.”

“Catch it?”

Rather than explain, Roxas moved to cut the randomly moving bag off. Xion, confused but willing to help, blocked the other direction. Between the two of them, they caught the bag in less than a minute, Roxas half tacking it to pin it down. And out came a dog with a bit of tugging along with a mess of garbage.

“This dumb mutt keeps getting stuck in bags. I have no idea how it ends up here half the time, but it’s not very bright.”

The dog whined and wiggled and tried to crawl right back into the garbage. Roxas held the bag out of reach.

“Oh no you don’t. What is even wrong with you?”

“He’s really cute,” Xion said. “But kind of…smelly.”

“Yeah, not the brightest dog at all. C’mon, go home. Your owner’s gonna blow a gasket when they find you covered in garbage again.”

As if realizing that Roxas was in no way, shape, or form going to give it the garbage back, the dog gave a huff of breath and slunk off, casting disgruntled looks over its shoulder.

“I can’t believe we pulled a dog from a bag of garbage,” Xion said. “You know, this wasn’t where I pictured this date going.”

Oh. Right. They were on a date. Roxas blushed. It was kind of weird but it felt like they’d been friends for a while, not two people that just met a little over an hour ago. He took the trash to a garbage can, trying not to get flustered again. “Well, it’s a unique date then. Can’t say anyone else would take you to a hill and have you chase a garbage dog.”

Xion snickered. “Yeah, somehow I don’t think most people would find that romantic.”

“Do you?” Roxas blurted before he could think twice about words coming out of his mouth.

She gave him a slow, considering look. “It’s kind of out there, but this is one of the better dates I’ve been on honestly.”

“Oh.” He blushed again. “Well. I’m, uh, glad then.” Wow, so smooth. Lea would be laughing his ass of if he was here. “So, one more Wonder, since we’re here?”

Xion nodded obligingly.

Roxas pointed at the rail that went off in the distance. “They say that there’s a ghost train that you can sometimes see. No one knows where it goes, but it doesn’t belong to any of the train lines in Twilight Town.”

“Is it real?” Xion asked.

“It’s said to only be seen at sunset.”

It took a moment but then Xion frowned. “Wait, isn’t Twilight Town…”

“Constantly in twilight?” Roxas said with a grin. “Kinda. It’s… I don’t know if you noticed, but the sun moves a little. There’s like ‘edges of dawn and edges of dusk’ twilight and then there’s the golden sunrise-set state most of the time. Pretty sure it’s the edges of dusk kind of twilight that the myth means, but who knows? Maybe the train just shows up at random.”

“Huh. Seems like a cheap way to leave it to chance.”

“Right?” He smiled, looking out at the golden glow. It was edging toward redder, more evening technically now. He was never going to get used to how Twilight Town’s sky worked. “I saw it once though.”

“Yeah?”

“Yep. Standing right here. It was all weird, like someone who only read fantasy novels tried to design a train. My bet? That train’s someone’s private rail line and they come to town every now and then, but it’s so infrequent it’s just become a legend.”

“Huh.” Xion tilted her head. “You know it would be cooler if it was actually owned by a wizard.”

“Might as well be. Not like we’re ever going to know.”

Xion hummed and leaned against the rail. The view was nice here too.

“You ever thought of photography?” he asked after a while of watching clouds turn red and gold and light cast dappled shadows down below. “To make the image last.”

“Thought about it,” Xion said, “but it wouldn’t feel right. I could take pictures and catch a tiny fragment of what it was, but it’d only just be that fragment. I’d rather have the memory of something real and in the moment than create something that can never catch the whole of it, you know?”

It seemed a bit of a waste, because the picture could prompt the memory, but at the same time he kind of got it. There was something even more beautiful about a sight knowing that it was the only time you’d get to see it. “I guess.”

They stood shoulder to shoulder for a long while until the golds in the sky were almost all reds and oranges.

“Is that all the Wonders of Twilight Town?” Xion asked, finally, completely relaxed beside him.

“There’s two more, some sounds from the tunnels and an abandoned mansion that people say they’ve seen a ghost girl in, but we don’t have to go see them if you don’t want to.”

Xion nudged him with her elbow. “I think we’ve done pretty well so far. Might as well see the rest.”

Roxas rubs the back of his head. “If you’re up to it. The tunnels…don’t exactly smell the greatest.”

“I’m not afraid of dark places and some garbage,” Xion said. “Besides, I think I’m getting a lot better tour of obscure places of Twilight Town than most people get.”

“I don’t think most people would want to stumble around the tunnel system or weird alleys.”

“Their loss.” Xion tossed him a wink and walked confidently toward the tunnels

Roxas laughed.

“Welcome,” he said as they stepped into the tunnels, “to the Underground Concourse, a lovely system of tunnels allowing you to get almost anywhere in Twilight Town without the hassle of dealing with busy streets.” He gave a pretentious little bow. “As you can see, it houses garbage, litter, used cigarette butts and various vermin.” As if on cue, a startled mouse skittered past.

“How charming,” Xion said.

“It’s really not that bad, just no one’s been through to clean lately. It happens a couple times a year and people are kinda slobs.” A soda can rattled away as he accidentally kicked it. “I wasn’t kidding about avoiding people though. Sometimes I cut through the tunnels if I need to get somewhere faster.”

“So what’s the legend here?”

“People say that if you walk the tunnels, you can hear the groans of some poor soul that got lost down here and never made it back out.” His grin glinted in the low light and Roxas led her to the ideal spot. “If you listen closely, you might hear them today.”

They stopped and there was a soft moaning sound. Xion raised an eyebrow. Roxas remembered Lea looking unnerved by the noise the first time he’d been down there, but Xion didn’t even look fazed. “So what is it really?”

“What, no belief in poor wayward souls?”

“I can’t imagine a ghost haunting someplace like this. It’s just not spooky enough.”

“Fair enough.” Roxas pointed up where there was an air vent. “As far as Pence could figure out, the sound’s caused by the vents. When it gets windy they make noise. Not very scary once you learn that.”

“It’s not that scary in the first place. A little dirty, but I’ve seen worse.” She smiled. “So, leave the not-so-haunted tunnels for the possibly-haunted mansion?”

“Right this way.” There used to be a hole in a wall kids climbed through on dares to creep close to the old mansion, but these days the only way to reach it was through the tunnels. One led outside the town walls into a forest, and so they climbed out into bushes and trees a few minutes later.

“Oh, hey, nature.”

“Yep. As nice as the town is, it’s good to get out of it and around trees sometimes. The mansion’s on the other end of the forest. If you can call it a forest. It’s not big enough to get lost in.”

“Close enough.” Xion touched a green leaf. “I’m finding the best places today.”

“I do know the best places.” He pushed through the undergrowth, the path a bit more overgrown than the last time he’d been through here. “Okay, I have friends who are from here and know all the best places. Still.”

“Well thank goodness for those friends.”

“I’ll have to introduce you. You’d probably get along with them. Actually you might have even seen them around; Hayner and Olette work for that new fancy restaurant down town.”

“You’ll have to point them out.”

The mansion gates loomed out of the clearing beyond the woods with its slightly-rusty blackened metal and worn brick walls. Stone pillars that might have been a part of a trellis system at one point were crumbling in the lawn and the mansion itself looked sad, like it was drooping, though that might just possibly be a roof problem. On one side was a big picture window on the second story, with curtains still visibly hanging.

“Well, there it is.” Roxas looked up at the building, feeling the same uneasy feeling he’d had back when he visited here with Pence. Pence swore he’d been in it once, and that it was a bunch of trashed rooms and a slightly-less-trashed library. He’d never felt brave enough to enter himself. “They say that sometimes there’s a girl that stands in the window and watches the world outside. No one’s lived here in over a decade though, so unless there’s been a squatter in the meantime, it’s not very likely there’s a girl there.

“It looks lonely,” Xion said. “Do you know what happened to the people that lived here?”

“No. Pence never mentioned, though he might know. He was the one doing the research report on it…”

They looked up at the mansion a few more minutes before Xion said, “Can you go in it?”

“Technically I think the lock is either broken or apparently really easy to pick, but I’ve never wanted to go in.”

“Really?” Xion asked, surprise clear on her face. “Not even once?”

“I don’t really believe in ghosts, but there’s something about this place that just… Gives me the heebie jeebies.” Roxas shrugged. “Pence says the first floor is really dusty and some of the rooms are trashed. There’s a library somewhere though and it’s really dusty but mostly in one piece I guess. Unless rats are nesting in it since the last time he broke in.”

“Well clearly I have to meet your friend so we can break in together.”

“Why would you want to go in?”

“Adventure,” Xion said. “Duh.” She grinned to make it clear she was teasing. “That’s kind of why I wanted to see all the Wonders in the first place, you know?”

“I guess I can see that.”

They looked at the mansion a bit longer and Roxas could _almost_ swear the curtain moved. But for all he knew there was a mouse or a crack in the window that caused a draft. He shook himself. It was getting late. “So… I hear you like sea salt ice cream?”

Xion’s eyes lit up. “I love sea salt ice cream.”

“My treat?” he offered.

“This time,” she said. “Next time, I’ll treat you.”

“So there’s going to be a next time?”

Xion nudged him with her elbow. “I’ve been having fun. And if you’re not into me romantically, I’d love to be friends.”

Roxas blushed. “Yeah, I’d like. Um, I’d like that too. And. You’re pretty cool all around.” Pretty cool? What was coming out of his mouth?

Xion didn’t seem to care that it was awkward though since she just smiled again.

o*O*o

The rest of the date was spent talking over melting bars of sea salt ice cream back at Station Plaza until they really had to go because it was getting pretty late to be out. Roxas walked Xion to her district in Twilight Town, and even screwed up the courage to kiss her cheek. Xion one-upped him and gave him a return kiss that had Roxas grinning the whole way home to his and Lea’s apartment.

Lea took one look and grinned right back, smug. “See?” he said. “I told you it’d work out. Am I the best or am I the best.”

“Shut up, you’re maybe second best.” But Roxas couldn’t even manage a scowl.

“Date was that good then?” Lea wiggled his eyebrows.

“We didn’t even go to the movie or get dinner,” Roxas said. “We did get ice cream. But it was a lot of fun.”

“You going to go out again?”

“Well, she promised to buy me ice cream next time so I’ll take that as a yes.” Roxas also had Xion’s phone number in his phone now.

Lea smiled, looking like a proud older brother for a second. “You managed a date successfully. You’re growing up so fast.”

“Ha ha, very funny.”

Roxas flopped back on his bed, already thinking of what texts he could send Xion’s way. He glanced at Lea’s smile. “Thanks though,” he said. “Really. Even if nothing else works out, I think Xion could be a good friend someday.”

“Don’t mention it.” Lea waved a hand. “Really. Now, will you buy me a bar of ice cream next time in thanks or…?”

Roxas rolled his eyes. “Sure, Lea. I’ll buy you ice cream sometime.”

“Score.”

Roxas snapped a photo of Lea’s smug face and sent it to Xion with the caption ‘guess who’s getting a swelled ego’.

He got back a laugh emoji and a ‘tell him thanks’.

Roxas did eventually pass along her message. But not until he’d spent another half hour exchanging messages. Couldn’t have Lea thinking he was that good of a matchmaker. Even if, in this case at least, Roxas thought he really might be right.


End file.
